By SAM METZ and JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — For Palestinians in Gaza, the Rafah border crossing to Egypt is their gateway to the world. But since Israel seized it in May 2024, it has been largely shut.

Now Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the crossing will reopen soon, as the U.S.-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire plan moves into its second phase.

That raises hopes for thousands of war-wounded Palestinians seeking travel abroad for medical care, and for tens of thousands of people outside Gaza seeking to return home.

But they face tight controls. Under conditions Netanyahu stipulates, only dozens of Palestinians will be allowed through the crossing each day, and no goods will cross for now. All other Gaza border crossings are with Israel.

Here’s what to know.

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Crossing might open in the coming days

An Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with policy said the Rafah crossing would open in the coming days. A person familiar with discussions on the reopening said they had been told it could come as early as Thursday.

Ali Shaath, newly appointed to head the Palestinian administrative committee governing Gaza’s daily affairs, said on Jan. 22 that the crossing would “open next week in both directions.”

“Opening Rafah signals Gaza is no longer closed to the future and to the world,” he said in a video the White House posted on X last week.

The U.S. has pressed Israel and Hamas to enter the ceasefire’s second phase. The remains of the final hostage in Gaza were recovered this week, completing a key part of the first phase.

Shaath and the new Palestinian committee remain in Cairo, without Israeli authorization to enter Gaza through Rafah.

Netanyahu says people to cross, not goods

Preparations are underway to let a limited number of medical evacuees leave Gaza first. That’s a significant shift from before the war, when most exited through Israel, according to World Health Organization data.

There are conflicting reports on how many people can cross each day. The Israeli official said 50 Palestinians will be allowed in and 50 out daily. The person familiar with discussions said 50 would be allowed in daily and 150 out.

That means a long wait for many of the estimated 20,000 sick and wounded that the territory’s health ministry says need treatment outside Gaza. At a rate of 50 evacuations a day, it would take more than a year for everyone to leave.

In the past, those prioritized for evacuation have been mostly children, cancer patients and people suffering from physical trauma. Most received treatment in Egypt.

Medical evacuees typically exit Gaza with escorts. The person familiar with the discussions said two escorts likely would be allowed for each evacuee.

Meanwhile, at least 30,000 Palestinians have registered with the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo for return to Gaza, according to an embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity because details of the reopening remain under discussion.

Israel will control who enters and leaves

A complex web of countries and institutions will oversee the Rafah crossing, including Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and a European Union mission, but Israel has control over who enters or exits.

Egypt will provide Israel with a list of names daily to vet and decide on, the Israeli official said.

Under the ceasefire terms, Israel’s military controls the area between the Rafah crossing and the zone where most Palestinians live. COGAT, Israel’s military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, will bus Palestinians to and from the crossing, the official said.

There will be no Israeli soldiers at the crossing, the official said, but Palestinians exiting and entering would undergo Israeli security screening inside Gaza. In the past, such screenings have been conducted by Israeli soldiers and private U.S. contractors.

“Anyone entering or exiting undergoes our inspection, a full inspection,” Netanyahu said Tuesday.

Officers from the EU Border Assistance Mission and the Palestinian Authority will run the crossing. Plainclothes officers with the Palestinian Authority will stamp passports, as they did during a brief ceasefire at the start of 2025 and before Hamas wrested control of Gaza in 2007, Palestinian officials told the AP.

Netanyahu seemed to acknowledge that members of Palestinian factions that historically have governed Gaza may play a role, noting that the majority of bureaucrats have a history of working for Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.

How Rafah functioned before the war

Even before the war, Palestinians faced heavy restrictions.

In 2022, the United Nations recorded more than 133,000 entries and 144,000 exits through Rafah, though many involved the same people crossing multiple times. Egyptian authorities allowed imports on 150 days of the year, and more than 32,000 trucks of goods entered.

Restrictions have tracked the region’s politics. Egypt, alongside Israel, imposed a blockade after Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007. It reopened the crossing after Egypt’s 2011 revolution but closed it in 2013 after the military ousted President Mohammed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement from which Hamas emerged.

Egypt gradually allowed the Rafah crossing to reopen in the years that followed, but the on-and-off restrictions led to a massive tunnel economy that sprung up beneath it. Tunnels served as an economic lifeline for Gaza and a conduit for weapons and cash, according to Israeli and Egyptian officials. Hamas collected tens of millions of dollars a month in taxes and customs on goods passing through the crossing.

Other details remain unclear

It is not clear when trucks will be allowed to pass through the Rafah crossing, what Palestinians will be permitted to bring and for how long daily entries and exits will be capped at or below 200.

That’s a big uncertainty for humanitarian organizations seeking to further surge aid into devastated Gaza, where groups have long reported vast shortages of medical supplies, fuel and other essential needs.

Netanyahu said his focus is on disarming Hamas, a challenging part of the ceasefire’s second phase, and destroying its remaining tunnels. He said there would be no reconstruction in Gaza without demilitarization, a stance that could make Israel’s control over the Rafah crossing a key point of leverage.

Associated Press writer Samy Magdy contributed from Cairo.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, Associated Press

Google is empowering its Chrome browser with the ability to alter imagery and a virtual assistant to help with online tasks as part of its push to turbocharge its digital services with more artificial intelligence technology.

The features rolling out include making Google’s AI image generator and editing tool, Nano Banana, available to Chrome’s logged-in users on desktop computers in the United States. The expanded access to Nano Banana through the leading web browser may further blur the lines between real-life pictures and fabricated images.

The browser’s expansion will also offer an option for Chrome’s U.S. users to open a side panel so an AI-powered assistant can help with an assortment of chores while a user remains engaged with other online tasks.

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Subscribers to Google’s AI Pro and Ultra services will also be able to activate an “auto browse” function that will log into websites, shop for merchandise on command and prepare posts on social media. Users will still have to manually complete purchases from the shopping carts prepared by AI and approve drafted social media posts.

The AI in Chrome relies on the Gemini 3 model that Google released late last year and is now being baked into many of the services that helped its corporate parent, Alphabet, recently surpass a market value of $4 trillion.

Earlier this month, Google tapped into Gemini to bring more AI features to Gmail as part of an effort to make that service behave more like a personal assistant and then funneled more of the technology into its search engine. in hopes of providing more relevant answers tailored to users’ individual tastes and habits.

The upgrades to Google’s search engine plug into the company’s “Personal Intelligence” technology that leverages AI to learn more about people’s lives. Google is promising to roll out a Personal Intelligence option in Chrome at some point later this year.

Chrome’s AI makeover is rolling out just a few months after a federal judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s push to force Google to sell the browser as part of the penalty for running an illegal monopoly in search. The judge rebuffed the proposed breakup partly because he believes AI already is reshaping the competitive landscape as smaller rivals such as OpenAI and Perplexity deploy the technology in chatbots and their own web browsers.

Before releasing its AI browser Atlas last October, OpenAI had expressed interest in buying Chrome if the breakup had been ordered. Perplexity, which offers an AI browser called Comet, even submitted a $34.5 billion bid for Chrome before the judge opted against a sale mandate.

“The ultra wealthy and the most profitable corporations are going to fight any revenue raiser,” said Brahvan Ranga, campaign manager of Invest in Our New York, a coalition of organizations pushing for progressive tax reforms. “But the political winds are at our back in a way that hasn’t been the case in years.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul announcing an expanded child care initiative earlier this month. (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral election resoundingly by running on reshaping New York to be affordable and manageable for working people. But many of his audacious plans require money—lots of it. 

With the exception of property taxes, the city can’t raise taxes on its own and must always go to Albany seeking votes. The mayor is asking for dollars right as the federal government is slashing funding (and cutting health insurance) and while Gov. Kathy Hochul—who has largely opposed raising taxes—and the legislature, who clutch the state’s purse strings, are preparing to run for re-election. 

Much of Mayor Mamdani’s success may rest on figuring out what taxes they’ll find politically palatable. He faces a larger-than-expected city budget deficient this year—what officials blamed on under-budgeting by the Adams administration—as he gets ready to negotiate his first spending plan due in July.

On the state level, the governor’s budget office has in recent months said revenue streams looked rosy and that taxes are “a last resort.” Hochul’s $260 billion state budget proposal, unveiled last week, avoided any such hikes. “You can make historic investments without raising income taxes,” the governor said. 

That’s not the attitude progressives are looking for, said Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the New York Working Families Party. Gov. Hochul “has made bold promises and under-delivered. We’ve been underwhelmed by the investment.”

She hopes that Mamdani’s win showed that the way to energize voters is with bold ideas. “We don’t want to be underwhelmed anymore,” she said. “The pressure from Zohran’s campaign means the demands of what New Yorkers are expecting are high.”

Brahvan Ranga, campaign manager of Invest in Our New York—a coalition of organizations pushing for tax reforms—points to a new poll that shows super majorities of New Yorkers supporting legislation that would raise revenue through progressive taxes.

That’s what Mamdani wants, too. His campaign plans called for raising an estimated $9 billion annually by hiking the corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent (to match neighboring New Jersey), and by adding a 2 percent income tax on anyone earning more than $1 million a year.

In a statement last week, Mamdani praised Hochul’s budget plan for making “meaningful investments” but reiterated his call to tax the rich. “It is time to ask New York City’s wealthiest and large corporations to pay their fair share,” he said. (Efforts to reach the new mayor for this story were unsuccessful.)

“The ultra wealthy and the most profitable corporations are going to fight any revenue raiser,” Ranga said. “But the political winds are at our back in a way that hasn’t been the case in years.”

The question becomes what tax plans to push forward with that wind. 

One idea that has circulated in recent years is a pied-à-terre tax. The tax would target multimillion dollar second homes in the city owned by the ultra wealthy. 

“We need money to run the city so a tax on the wealth of the people that own multimillion dollar homes and are not living in them makes sense,” said Morris Pearl, the chair of the group Patriotic Millionaires, which advocates for higher taxes for people in their own bracket. 

The pied-à-terre tax became popular with the public and some officials a decade ago, when faceless oligarchs from other countries and American billionaires snapped up exorbitantly-priced apartments that they didn’t even live in. 

Luxury towers along Manhattan’s “Billionaires’ Row” overlooking Central Park. (Felix Lipov/Shutterstock)

It seems like an easy target, given the minuscule, elite constituency. But lobbyists killed the legislation in 2019. In 2023, then-Comptroller Brad Lander again pushed the idea, but it has yet to gain serious traction and its opponents remain implacable. “The real estate lobby has lots of powerful friends in state government and so I would imagine that could be an obstacle,” Ranga said.

James Whelan, President of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) said in an emailed statement that the tax is “a fundamentally flawed idea” that would cost jobs and discourage investment.

Ironically, the bigger issue for the pied-à-terre tax is that the people who support the idea rank it low on their priority list. If Gov. Hochul threw her weight behind it, progressives would welcome it, Gripper said. But she and her allies are not pushing for it. 

“Progressive groups have agreed on a set of revenue raisers that we’re committed to fighting for and a few years ago we actually set aside the pied-à-terre tax,” Gripper said. “We’re not against it. It’s simply that it doesn’t raise enough revenue. It doesn’t get us to closing the affordability crisis.”

“It doesn’t change the macro budget outlook of the state or the city,” adds Nathan Gusdorf, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute.

(This is also true of the commuter tax, which was foolishly relinquished decades ago by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. While there’s some disagreement—Gripper calls it regressive for working people commuting from the suburbs—from the city’s perspective, it’s “a travesty that it was repealed,” Gusdorf said. “You’re earning your income here and the city has a right to tax people on that income earned here.” But it’s not politically palatable and doesn’t bring in enough revenue to make it worth fighting for, he added.)

Ranga likes the idea that the pied-à-terre tax reflects the city’s shift in priorities and has widespread public support, so he believes it could be part of the puzzle. But he doesn’t think it should be a focal point in the coming legislative cycle. The pied-à-terre tax would reap hundreds of millions of dollars, which is “pretty minimal” compared to “both the scale of the federal cuts and the the scale of the new programs we’re proposing,” he said.

And while it may disincentivize some of the worst practices on the housing front, he’d rather see a fight to “pass legislation to strengthen tenants rights and rent stabilization or for legislation to enact social housing to massively construct beautiful mixed income, affordable housing for all New Yorkers.”

Ultimately, he said, the pied-à-terre tax falls short because “it can’t replace bolder proposals either on the housing front or the revenue front.”

Instead, Gripper, Ranga and Gusdorf are all thinking big. “We want to target revenue that puts us in the billions of dollars in order to actually fund things like universal childcare,” Gripper said, referring to one of the new mayor’s goals (Gov. Hochul recently announced that the state will fund the first two years of an expanded free child care program, but funding beyond that is still to be determined).

Gripper said raising the personal income tax on just the absolute wealthiest could generate $20 billion, a state capital gains tax could raise about $12 billion, boosting the corporate tax yields $7 billion and an heirs tax reaps $4 billion. 

There’s also the idea of a wealth tax—applied to a person’s total assets, rather than their annual earnings—like the national one promoted by Elizabeth Warren. “We have to get beyond the personal income tax,” Gripper said.

Pearl, of the Patriotic Millionaires, notes that he has virtually no income, so he is barely taxed. “I think these things should be on the table,” he said. “We need the school teachers, doormen, bus drivers and others who work here to be able to afford to live here. The governor should think about them, not the small number of people from whom she’s chosen to get support.”

But Gusdorf said there are potential constitutional limitations on a wealth tax in New York (although Gripper believes they could win on challenges in court). He adds that while it’s a good policy, it also introduces unknowns, from potential court battles to details of how to fully capture the value of the wealthy’s assets. 

He cites an adage that “an old tax is a good tax because any tax is complex and it takes so long to work out the kinks and there’s so much to fight over.” This argument applies to the pied-à-terre tax, too. “People think the income tax is toxic, so we need a new tax but that’s thinking backwards,” he said. 

“Everything that seems appealing about doing a new tax is going to be a nightmare. The income tax works. People pay it. We have regulations and legal and accounting expertise to deal with it,” Gusdorf added. “It’s the one thing where you raise it a little bit and you’re going to get a lot more money.”

Gripper said raising the personal income tax on people making more than $25 million would have plenty of public support. “That feels really easy and tangible,” she said.

Gusdorf adds that The Fiscal Policy Institute has plenty of research showing that, despite fear-mongering by the right, rich New Yorkers really don’t move out in response to the income tax. (The Institute’s studies show that working class people leave at a much higher rate than the wealthy, driven out by the cost of living.)

“The millionaires and billionaires are not going anywhere,” adds Gripper. “It is their playground. They love the museums. They love the parties.  They love New York. We’re just asking them to pay their fair share.”

New York Stock Exchange building in Manhattan’s Financial District. “The millionaires and billionaires are not going anywhere,” Gripper says. (JJFarq/Shutterstock)

Gusdorf also disputes the notion that raising the corporate tax rate would harm businesses. Sixteen states have a higher corporate tax rate than New York’s, he said, and Mamdani’s goal is simply to match New Jersey’s rates. The tax is not based on where a company is headquartered, but on how much business a company does in New York, and it’s only paid by the approximately 1,000 most profitable corporations. “It hits a small number of businesses and is structured so there’s no economic disincentive effect,” he said.

Gripper said progressive policy groups have also tinkered with their proposal on the heirs tax to make sure it only hits those “who are about to have the biggest wealth transfer in history”—raising the threshold and creating safeguards to protect people who inherit valuable property that they want to live on or use for farming. 

Ranga hopes that Mamdani’s election is a game changer for all those legislators looking for voters’ support this year. 

“Voters are saying the government should make our lives better and they should do so by making the ultra-rich and the most powerful corporations pay their fair share,” he said, adding that legislators and the governor should realize this extends beyond the five boroughs to the state’s smaller cities and even rural areas. “If you’re running for re-election, you’ve got to be responsive to that.”

Gripper notes that the governor has “outsized power in the budget process” but she believes that if the legislature “holds firm we can get good things done.”

“I am confident that one or more of these revenue raisers will get passed this year,” she said.

 To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Tax Talk: Mamdani’s Ambitious Agenda Requires New Revenue. What Could That Look Like? appeared first on City Limits.

By JOHN WAWROW

Kelly Pannek has spent the past decade enjoying a front-row view of U.S. teammate Hilary Knight and Canada’s Marie-Philip Poulin one-upping the other in a fierce, friendly rivalry involving two of the most accomplished players in the history of women’s hockey.

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Playful and easygoing as the two are away from the rink, Pannek has witnessed the intensity, gamesmanship and dialed-in ability to step up their games in the biggest moments.

“They push each other,” Pannek said, before recalling the Americans’ 6-3 gold-medal win over Canada at the 2023 world championships.

“I laugh actually because Poulin scores on the 5-on-3, and she shot it right over Hilary’s foot,” Pannek said. “Hilary took that personally, and then scored three goals and won us that game.”

Knight doesn’t dispute it. “Yeah, I was pissed,” she said, laughing. And, yes, it mattered who scored.

“When a great player finds the back of the net against you, and it’s your job to keep it out of the net, you’re like, ‘All right, let’s go,’” Knight said.

Captain America vs. Captain Clutch

The gripping back-and-forth swings of gold-medal highs and silver-medal lows have played out over some 17 years and more than 100 games on the international stage between two players with altogether different backgrounds. Knight grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and Poulin in Beauceville, a rural town an hour’s drive south of Quebec City.

It will be in Milan where the two meet next month for a fifth and potentially final time at the Winter Games.

“If that’s the case, it’s a shame,” Team Canada coach Troy Ryan said. “It’s been a privilege to watch and to be witness to the back and forth.”

They are guaranteed one more meeting in a preliminary round matchup on Feb. 10. There is a good chance they will face off again for gold nine days later. At 36, Knight already has announced these Games will be her last. At 34, Poulin has not shed light on her Olympic future.

Veteran U.S. defender Lee Stecklein still can’t fathom the thought.

“I’ll believe Hilary’s done when I see it. I don’t believe her,” she said with a laugh.

The numbers are astounding for two generational icons, and first to earn International Ice Hockey Federation female player of the year honors, Knight in 2024 and Poulin last June.

Knight has the edge with 10 world championship gold medals to Poulin’s four. Knight also holds the world tournament record for goals (67), assists (53) and points (120).

Poulin has shined at the Olympics, earning her “Captain Clutch” nickname by scoring the gold medal-winning goal three times. She is second behind Knight on the world championship list with 89 points, and second on the Olympic list with 35 points, trailing former Canadian teammate Hayley Wickenheiser.

“I think it just goes to show that we want to be the best player every single time we hop on the ice, specifically also against one another,” Knight said. “And we’re going to put on a show.”

National icons

The two are the faces of women’s hockey in their respective nations.

“It takes a really special person to be able to withstand — especially in Canada — that amount of pressure and responsibility. And she does it with grace,” former U.S. Olympian Meghan Duggan said of Poulin.

“Similar to Hilary,” added Duggan, Knight’s teammate from 2007 to 2018. “Her ability to just naturally show up in big moments is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

FILE- United States forward Hilary Knight (21) and Canada forward Marie-Philip Poulin (29) battle during the second period of the gold medal game at women’s world hockey championships in Brampton, Ontario, Sunday, April 16, 2023. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

They first met on the international stage at the 2009 world championships, where Poulin made her Team Canada debut. It didn’t take long for each to begin taking notice of the other.

Poulin’s first memory was falling into the boards on a failed backcheck as Knight broke free to score in overtime of a 3-2 win in the gold-medal game at the 2011 world championships in Zurich.

“Yeah, that’s how it started,” Poulin said, laughing.

For Knight, her first recollection of Poulin came at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

“She got loose on the draw, and it’s in the back of our net pretty quickly,” Knight said of Poulin scoring her second goal in Canada’s 2-0 gold-medal win. “Our center drops her and I’m just like, ‘Oh, my gosh, here we go.’”

They’ve gone at it ever since, and even spent a season as teammates in Montreal with the now-defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League.

Their legacies include playing instrumental roles in the growth of women’s hockey, and in helping establish the Professional Women’s Hockey League. The league, now in its third year, grew from six to eight teams this season, with more expansion on the horizon.

“They’re both legends,” said PWHL executive Jayna Hefford, a Hockey Hall of Famer. “I think it’s a special moment for women’s hockey to have the two of them facing off maybe one last time. Who knows, right? Who knows what they might do? I’ll feel like a fan watching it and just trying to enjoy it.”

Knight has found peace in already calling these her last Olympics. And yet, she continues dropping hints to suggest a potential change of mind.

“Unless you convince me otherwise,” Knight said in November when asked if she might get the itch again. “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see.”

Settled in Seattle

Two months later, while promoting Hershey’s chocolate, Knight excitedly described the electric welcome the PWHL has received during her first season in Seattle.

“It definitely gives you a new life, a new breath,” she told The Associated Press. “It’s really heartfelt, and it only deepens that want for me to play even longer.”

She has not lost her scoring touch. Last season in Boston, Knight finished tied for the PWHL lead with 29 points. This season, she has two goals and nine points in 13 games.

Count Poulin among the doubters, saying, “We’ll see,” on whether these might be Knight’s last Olympics.

Not in question is Poulin’s admiration.

“She’s always holding herself to the highest standards. And she’s done it with tremendous professionalism and grace,” Poulin said. “She wants to leave the sport in a better place, and she has done it. And I hope she can finish with her head held high.”

AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics